Search results for ""Author Helen Hardacre""
Oxford University Press Inc Shinto: A History
From time immemorial, the Japanese people have worshipped Kami--spirits that inhabit or represent a particular place, or embody natural forces like the wind, rivers, and mountains. Whenever a new settlement was founded a shrine would be erected for the spirits of that place to honor them and ensure their protection. It was believed that Kami could be found everywhere, that no place in Japan was outside their dominion. Shinto encompasses the doctrines, institutions, ritual, and communal life based on Kami worship. The ideal of Shinto, central to this study, is a construct in which a monarch rules through rituals for the Kami, a priestly order assists the sovereign by coordinating rituals, and the people who fulfill their obligations to the collective are in turn blessed by the Kami. Center and periphery join together in untroubled harmony through this theatre of state. Helen Hardacre offers for the first time in any language a sweeping, comprehensive history of Shinto, which is practiced by some 80% of the Japanese people. The basic building blocks of this vast and varied tradition, she shows, include the related concepts of imperial rule and ritual, the claim that rituals for the Kami are public in character, and the assertion that this complex web of ideas and institutions devoted to the Kami embodies Japan's "indigenous" tradition. This study addresses the story of the emergence and development of these elements and the debates that surround them to this day. Because Shinto is centered on the Kami, it might be assumed that it is a religion, but Hardacre resists that assumption, instead questioning the character of the tradition at each stage of its history. She analyzes and deconstructs the rhetoric of Shinto as a defining feature of Japan's racial identity, inextricably woven into the fabric of Japanese life. This definitive study represents a first, momentous step towards a more developed understanding of Shinto.
£43.21
Princeton University Press Lay Buddhism in Contemporary Japan: Reiyukai Kyodan
Basing her book on four years of field work (including interviews, a survey of 2,000 Reiyukai members, and eight months of residence with believers), she analyzes Reiyukai ancestor worship and veneration of the Lotus Sutra. She explains the enduring appeal of a religion, founded in 1919, that dedicates itself to the spread of true Buddhism" and that retains its core intact, in spite of a number of schisms. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
£36.00
Princeton University Press Shinto and the State, 1868-1988
Helen Hardacre, a leading scholar of religious life in modern Japan, examines the Japanese state's involvement in and manipulation of shinto from the Meiji Restoration to the present. Nowhere else in modern history do we find so pronounced an example of government sponsorship of a religion as in Japan's support of shinto. How did that sponsorship come about and how was it maintained? How was it dismantled after World War II? What attempts are being made today to reconstruct it? In answering these questions, Hardacre shows why State shinto symbols, such as the Yasukuni Shrine and its prefectural branches, are still the focus for bitter struggles over who will have the right to articulate their significance. Where previous studies have emphasized the state bureaucracy responsible for the administration of shinto, Hardacre goes to the periphery of Japanese society. She demonstrates that leaders and adherents of popular religious movements, independent religious entrepreneurs, women seeking to raise the prestige of their households, and men with political ambitions all found an association with shinto useful for self-promotion; local-level civil administrations and parish organizations have consistently patronized shinto as a way to raise the prospects of provincial communities. A conduit for access to the prestige of the state, shinto has increased not only the power of the center of society over the periphery but also the power of the periphery over the center.
£36.00
Princeton University Press Kurozumikyo and the New Religions of Japan
The description for this book, Kurozumikyo and the New Religions of Japan, will be forthcoming.
£31.50
